Saying Goodbye to a Friend
by butterfly collective
Summary: This takes place after "China Doll" when C.J. out of the hospital is saying goodbye to her old friend.


This is a little vignette after the episode, "China Doll" (season 2) ended...just borrowing the characters for story purposes. Hope you enjoy it and thanks for reading and the feedback!

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C.J. sat by the grave of one of her closest friends, after she had been laid to rest. The coffin had been lowered into the ground wreathed by single white roses which had been dropped in the dark hole that would soon entomb it and the young woman who lay at permanent rest inside.

A crowd of family members and friends had gathered under cloudy skies to listen to the minister say the final words of farewell to Connie Ling who had been a daughter, a sister, a niece, and a beloved friend. While alive, she had worked hard as a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art specializing in collections from the Far Eastern countries while trying to get her younger brother to clean himself up. He hadn't been in the funeral because the last promise he had made to his sister was to go to a rehab center and get off the heroin. When he had made that promise, he had known in his heart he had been lying, just trying to find the right words and say them to get him off of her back, while he kept the monkey on his back.

But after she had been killed by a crooked DEA agent named Carter, he had seen his own future ahead of him while that of the sister who had raised him had been snuffed out. His own future of degrading himself and her memory by feeding his hunger from drugs, getting strung out and lying and cheating his way to his next fix. He had grown up the golden boy who had been supposed to make good, had been appointed valedictorian of his high school class, had gotten a scholarship to an Ivy League school and then decided on one last adventure before he resumed his studies. That side trip with a bunch of kids a bit on the wild side had lasted the entire summer months and by its end, heroin had become his life.

C.J. thought of him lying on some clinic bed, in the throes of heroin withdrawal, which if it didn't leave him wanting to die would eventually end with him choosing life. After years of having grabbed the dragon by the tail.

Connie would have wanted that, to see her brother choose the right path to try to find his way back to his life filled with promise. She had given up her own life to try to help the DEA bust a large heroin ring only to have the agent assigned to that case betray her in horrible fashion.

Her side ached, where the bullet had ripped through it, shot from a moving vehicle driven by two hit men who worked for one of the most notorious drug lords in downtown L.A. She had felt only the searing blast strike her a split second before Matt had reached her, to shield her body with his own sturdy one before he rolled them both on the ground below the hail of gunfire.

But not quickly enough as the first gunshot had found its mark, leaving her bleeding on the pavement and struggling to live. Matt had leaned over her, and saw the blood splatter on the sidewalk even as it had marred her white silk blouse. He looked up at the gathering of bystanders beseeching them to call 911. It took a couple sharp words to break them loose from their stunned silence and finally one young woman pulled out her cell phone to make the call.

Matt had waited with C.J. cradling her still form in his arms. Her vitals had remained strong as she fought to live. He reminded her through jagged whispers in her ears all that she had to live for, including those who loved her.

Including him.

While lying in the hospital during the quiet of night, she almost remembered those moments in darkness when she thought she had heard his soft voice urging her to come back to him. And of course she did, because whenever had she been able to refuse him anything? She had awoken in a hospital bed buzzed on pain medication, feeling both of his warm hands wrapped around her cooler one, smiling at her as she told him she was sorry. That he had said a prayer or two which he had while leaning against the wall with closed eyes next to the double doors where she had disappeared with the surgical team. While he had been sitting with Two Mean in the waiting room for hours clutching a cup of lukewarm coffee.

The split second before the surgeon dressed in his scrubs had told him she had made it, after he had appeared in front of him and Two Mean.

"Thank God…can I see her?"

The surgeon had let him…for just a minute… long enough for him to know she had made it back to him. For her to know that he had been right there awaiting her return from her own journey between life and death.

When she had spoken for the last time with Connie who appeared unmarred in front of her bathed in bright light telling her everything would be all right.

She had mended swiftly as she always did when hospitalized and had gone home to stay with Matt at his beach house for a wonderful week. During the days, she would sit out reading on his deck looking out into the beach, the warmth of the sun on her face and at night they would barbecue under the moon and stars, and take walks along the beach at low tide.

And talk about the things they never had time to share with each other. Their fears of leaving each other, of not saying the words that really mattered until it was too late. She shared the lingering grief from the loss of her parents at a young age and he about the guilt he had allowed to fester inside him for years at the loss of his cousin, Will.

She had done as Connie asked in that final conversation and she knew her friend would be proud. And she in turn had visited her younger brother when she got out of the hospital even though he had been too strung out to do anything but cling to the underside of his cot and hum to himself. His sister's favorite song that she sung for him when he was a little boy and even when he had been older and had crashed after doing drugs on the couch of her apartment.

She had looked at him lying there with needle marks on his arm and a glazed expression on his face and had made her decision that would ultimately end her life, to go after the drug lord whose heroin fueled his addiction.

Now she knelt at her grave before the workers would be filling with dirt and a layer of sod so that the grass on top of it would soon grow seamless. Some flowers might be planted there, maybe irises which had been her favorite.

She heard someone come up behind her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw Matt dressed in formal clothes, his face still tired from the ordeal they had just both lived through. She reached for his hand finally and he helped her up on her feet, taking great care not to cause her pain. She smiled up at him.

"It was a beautiful service wasn't it," she said.

He nodded and stroked a strand of hair off of her face.

"Yeah…it certainly was," he said.

She picked up a tinge of anger in his voice, from the realization that she had died a violent life in the prime of her life. The last time she had spoken to C.J. had been on the phone asking for help. Hearing the panic in her friend's voice which didn't belong there, C.J. had signaled Matt to pick up on the extension.

They had both dropped everything and had broken speed records rushing through L.A. streets to her apartment but it had been too late. Matt had remained close to C.J. while she felt shock hit her laced with grief. When Hoyt had told him that the man he had shot had a 50/50 chance to survive, Matt's response had been simple.

"That's more than he gave Connie Ling…"

He hadn't really known the young vibrant woman who had been C.J.'s roommate back in college and her friend for 10 years. She had been the woman in the photograph standing with C.J. in front of the Hard Rock Café in San Francisco, both of them smiling at something outside the photograph.

But he had learned about her through stories C.J. had told him through her tears and had liked her. C.J. turned to him as he wrapped his arm around her.

"You want to stay a while longer?"

She shook her head and she wrapped her hands around his own hand on the arm around her waist as they left the gravesite. Her head resting against him as they walked out of the cemetery towards his car.

Behind them, a cascade of sunlight broke through the clouds and fell on Connie's grave.


End file.
